Agenda - 05-05-2009 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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~ Qch m yen ~t- D Orange County NC Room Meeting with State Library -Genealogy Specialist - 3/16/09 Pam Toms -Genealogical Services Supervisor, NC State Library Lucinda Munger, Kim Sholar and Andrea Tullos -Orange County Public Library Ms. Toms with the Government and Heritage Library of the State Library of NC, Genealogist, met at the Orange County Public Library to review the NC Room inventory and holdings. There was a brief review of the holdings and the review of the floor plan for the new facility on Margaret Lane. While reviewing the inventory, Ms. Toms pointed out the local history collection needs to retain materials that are unique to the county and to the town of Hillsborough. While reviewing the new facility floor plan, Ms. Toms suggested providing chairs and tables for researchers near the non-circulating collection. Ms. Toms was sympathetic to the task at hand, as she noted clearly that there was no room fora "NC Room" in the new facility. Library staff indicated that they had been working toward providing access to a choice selection of the local history collection in the non-circulating reference area of the new facility. Ms. Toms expressed that this would be feasible if the library provided a "core basic collection", as she defined it: histories from local areas and genealogy documents. Ms. Toms also expressed affirmation to the established twin goals of I) public accessibility and 2) preservation, protection and security of the materials. In the new facility Ms. Toms suggested utilizing heavy signage to identify the specialized collection. Additionally, she suggested that digitization of select items that are rare may be a good decision, as long as you adhere to copyright laws. The key to genealogy research as defined by Ms. Toms was to provide access to county information. In particular, as it relates to the formation of existing neighboring counties which were part of the original parent county, Orange County. Additionally, Orange County was included in the parent county of Granville. These historical documents would include: Caswell, Person, Granville, Orange, Durham, Alamance, and Chatham counties. As a Genealogist at the State Library, Ms. Toms complimented the staff on providing open shelves and access, where a researcher can browse materials. Ms. Toms advised suggested steps in paring down the collection such as: removing duplicates, those items already found in current reference collection, and remove items already available through our online electronic databases of ancestry.com and Heritage Quest. Ms. Toms also suggested that the microfilm and microfilm machine should be relocated to the new facility. Ms. Toms suggested that following our meetings with the specialists and after receiving final direction from the Board of Commissioners, that the Library Director attend a DOGS meeting and provide an update to the group of the process.